On Monday night, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders joined Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum for a televised town hall. Much of the conversation revolved around Sanders’s recent acknowledgment that, thanks to book earnings and a six-figure Senate salary, he is a millionaire.
Sanders defended his status, claiming that it was representative of the options he’s been afforded by his successful career — options that aren’t available to the working-class voters to whom he caters his messaging. “I mean, you know, what we want is a country where everybody has opportunity,” he said. “You know, I have a college degree. I’m a United States senator. But a lot of people don’t have a college degree. A lot of people are not United States senators. I want everybody in this country to be able to have health care, to have education, to, when they turn on the water, have drinkable water, not toxic water.”
Later in the evening, Baier turned to the audience, wondering who in the studio “get[s] their insurance from work — private insurance.” Much of the audience, and Sanders, raised their hands. Baier then asked: “Of those, how many are willing to transition to what the senator says, a government-run system.” And in that quick survey, Baier learned in real time about Medicare for All’s supermajority support for a government option that provides “Medicare to every American,” as a 2018 poll that showed impressive support for a single-payer system put it.
